It’s Frozen Four semifinals day: I look forward to this day all year, which is partly why 2020 was so utterly crushing. The Frozen Four is college hockey’s version of the Final Four, and tonight will feature the four remaining NCAA Division 1 Men’s Ice Hockey teams1 as they battle for a spot in Saturday night’s final. This year’s Frozen Four is the University of Massachusetts, St. Cloud State, University of Minnesota Duluth, and Minnesota State (Mankato).
The puck hasn’t even dropped yet, and already there’s drama. UMass has had a positive covid test, meaning four of its players, including two goalies and their leading scorer, are out due to contact tracing, and an equipment manager has been tapped as a backup goaltender.2 Minnesota-Duluth won a five overtime game against North Dakota to punch their ticket to Pittsburgh. St. Cloud State and Minnesota State, two teams who historically have blown it in the playoffs after exemplary regular seasons, finally got their acts together.
Buckle up. The games are set for 5pm and 9pm eastern.
And while my team isn’t in it this year, I’m excited to see what happens. Ice is slippery and anything is possible. Plus it’s kind of refreshing to have no dog in the fight.
What I did this week: Here is everything I wrote for Catholic News Agency since the last issue dropped.3 Any commentary in The Thursday News Dump is my opinion, and not reflective of anyone else or my employer.
“Missouri nuns have a history of being targeted for shootings, harassment” Someone keeps shooting at a monastery of nuns in Missouri, and they’re trying to raise funds for a wall to keep themselves safe.
“White House: Biden has ‘difference of opinion’ from Catholics concerned about Equality Act” Remember what I said about the Supreme Court last week? Still applies.
Recipe of the week: On Wednesday, it was announced that Shin Choon-ho, founder and chairman of the instant noodle brand Nongshim, had died on March 27. He was 91 years old.
As someone who literally has an entire kitchen cabinet full of noodles and noodle-adjacent items, including several of Nongshim’s products, I was sad to hear of his passing. I thought it would be a fitting tribute to the man behind the noods to make a something new for dinner that showcased his work.
So here’s this week’s recipe of the week: Kujirai Ramyun.
Kujirai Ramyun is a slightly unorthodox way of making Shin Ramyun, but with temperatures on Wednesday reaching the high 70s, it was way too hot for a traditional ramyun soup.4 Shin Ramyun, for the unaware who are not mildly obsessed with noodles,5 is a type of instant noodle—but it’s also so much more than that.6 For one, it’s spicy—so much that its website boasts that it can “make a man cry.” The noodles are also slightly different than the standard instant noodle, and they have a bit more heft to them.
Wanting to eat Shin Ramyun, but not wanting to eat soup, I did some googling. I landed on this website, which featured easy ways to upgrade ramyun. I wanted to make something that used all the components of a Shin Ramyun package—the noodles, the soup base, and the dried vegetables.7
Also, I was lazy and not in the mood to go to the store for something, so I was intrigued by #3 on the list: the Kujirai Ramyun.8
As far as Recipes of the Week go, this one is probably the easiest. It involved putting a pan9 on the stove, adding 350-ish ml of water, and waiting for the water to boil. When the water began to boil, I added the noodles and the dehydrated vegetable packet. Then I added about half of the soup base, and stirred it all together, flipping the noodles after a bit to ensure even cooking.
Once the noodles became significantly less brick-like, I lowered the heat, created a well in the center of the pan, and cracked in an egg. I put half a slice of American cheese on either side of the egg, along with some scallions. Then I put a lid on the pan to cook the egg.
After about a minute-ish with the lid on, the egg was poached and the yolk was still runny.
I took the pan off the heat, took some pictures for Twitter…and then ate it right out of the pan after I added some cut up sesame nori.10
This was SPICY. I probably added in too much of the soup base packet, but I have no regrets. I definitely want to make this again.
RIP, Chairman Shin.
Throwback Thursday: College hockey is my favorite iteration of my favorite sport, and I’ve been fortunate enough to have attended three Frozen Fours—2014, 2015, and 2019. All of them were epic, of course, but 2015 takes the cake. That year, Providence College, my alma mater, won the national championship. It honestly was one of the happiest nights of my life, and I’m not sure I’ve ever yelled like that before or since.
Headphone users…beware:
Maybe we’ll get a repeat in 2022.
Parting Thoughts: This spring, unlike other springs, truly feels like a rebirth. The weather is gorgeous, and there’s a renewed sense of optimism. I dig it.
And in the literal sense of birth and new life, I met my friend’s nine-day-old baby on Easter Sunday. She was very cute and very small.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
Assuming they all pass the covid protocols
He probably won’t end up playing, but imagine if he did!?
This was a short week this week, as CNA is a Catholic company and we had Thursday, Friday, and Monday off from work.
This is not a misspelling of “ramen”; Korean ramyun, or ramyeon, is different than ramen.
I promise next week’s Recipe of the Week won’t involve noodles or pasta.
Serious Eats did an excellent piece about Shin Ramyun last year.
It seemed like cheating to discard the vegetables and soup base and just use the noodles.
This dish is inspired by a Japanese comic strip. No, I’m not kidding. Yes, I just learned this tonight.
I use the Always Pan, because I’m a sucker for an Instagram ad. It works as well as advertised—click here if you want to save $20 on yours.
I didn’t want to dirty a plate. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯